Progress in tackling child poverty

The government has a target of eradicating child poverty by 2020. Local authorities now have a legal obligation help meet this goal by developing strategies to tackle child poverty in their area. London has the highest regional rate of child poverty in the country, so the task facing the capital’s boroughs is challenging. This briefing explores some of the barriers to tackling poverty and the innovative ways boroughs are progressing towards the target.

Overview

London is the richest region in the country, yet it also has the highest rates of child poverty. Six London boroughs feature in the top ten local authorities with the highest levels of child poverty.1 Within London itself, child poverty is higher among the inner London boroughs with the east suffering much more than the west. After taking into account housing costs, it is estimated that four in ten London children live in poverty.

Child poverty by borough2

1. Child poverty map of the UK, End Child Poverty, 2012.
2. London’s poverty profile, Trust for London and New Policy Institute, 2011. To help measure progress against the national target of eradicating child poverty by 2020, the previous government placed a statutory duty on boroughs under the Child Poverty Act 2010. The Act requires boroughs to undertake a local child poverty needs assessment and use the results to develop a joint local child poverty strategy.

While some boroughs have produced separate needs assessments and strategies, others have merged their child poverty documents within other corporate priorities, such as the Children and Young People needs assessments and plans or sustainable communities strategies.

**Analysis**

The government recently launched its report on progress towards the 2010 target of halving child poverty. Although latest official figures(^3) show that there was a reduction of 1.1 million children living in poverty compared to the baseline figure of 2.3 million, the target was still missed by 600,000 children.

Despite fluctuations over the last two decades, London’s child poverty rate has hovered around the 40 per cent mark. Tackling child poverty in London has proved more challenging than elsewhere in the country, for a number of reasons:

- London has the highest housing, transport and childcare costs in the country.
- the London jobs market has an “hourglass” structure, meaning more jobs at the lower and higher end with relatively fewer in the middle
- a high proportion of Londoners are from disadvantaged groups, such as lone parent families.

In spite of these challenges, boroughs have been making progress towards tackling child poverty. The latest poverty profile for London(^4) shows that London children on free school meals (FSMs) do better at school than children outside of London on FSMs.

**Borough innovation**

**A whole-family approach**

Waltham Forest was selected to be a pilot in the Local Authority Innovation Pilot Programme led by the Child Poverty Unit in April 2009. The project, “More 4 U”, focused on developing a whole-family support model to help increase access to mainstream services. It targeted specific postcode areas within the borough which were known to have high levels of deprivation and persistent unemployment. Outcomes from the project were:

- more parents in work and accessing children’s centre services
- household incomes raised by making sure parents are aware of all the benefits and support they’re entitled to claim
- creating a supportive network of parents, able to help one another and create community support against poverty
- encouraging parents to read to their children more - boosting performance in school.

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3. Households below average income, 2010/11.
4. London’s poverty profile, Trust for London, 2011. A partnership approach

Croydon’s Children and Families Partnership brings together all the agencies which provide services for children and families. It includes the council, health service, police, probation services, schools and colleges and the voluntary sector. This approach has helped Croydon tackle factors contributing to child poverty and the borough has seen good progress in:

- reducing teenage pregnancies
- improving exam attainment for 16 year-olds
- improving school readiness.

A neighbourhood budget approach

Kingston identified that child poverty was concentrated in certain areas of the borough. Norbiton ward has almost double the number of children living in poverty than any other ward. Kingston has used its success in applying to be a Neighbourhood Community Budget pilot to set up the OneNorbiton – Working Together project. This will see the borough and other local agencies pool some of their funds together to tackle the inequality gaps experienced by local residents. While pooling resources is nothing new, this project puts local people at the heart of deciding what services are prioritised, how they should be designed and how they should be delivered. So far Norbiton’s communities have identified the following priorities: housing, public areas, police and safety and youth activities. Kingston has set an ambitious target of lifting 1,000 children out of poverty by 2014.5

Commentary

Children in poverty tend not to have rich parents. Child poverty is of course intimately linked with overall poverty and as such, efforts made by boroughs to tackle child poverty must be seen in the context of the overall economic situation.

The coalition government has outlined a new approach to tackling child poverty that emphasises the importance of making work pay. The government estimates that moving households onto universal credit will move 350,000 children out of poverty. Furthermore, in measuring child poverty, the coalition has indicated that it wants to move away from income targets and will instead concentrate on the wider issues related to child poverty, such as aspiration and worklessness.

Around 55 per cent of children in poverty are living in working households. One practical response is to help low-paid workers to gain the skills to access better paid jobs. This briefing has already noted the hourglass structure of London’s job market, so even with increased skills, there remains an issue of job scarcity and mobility.

The London Living Wage (LLW) is another solution that is promoted as a way of reducing poverty in the capital. The LLW campaign aims to increase the number of employers who pay the LLW rate6, which is an independently calculated minimum hourly rate needed to cover the basic cost of living in London. Several private sector firms have already become accredited LLW employers and Lewisham and Islington were the first two local authorities to gain accreditation.

5. Kingston has around 5,000 children living in poverty.
6. The London Living Wage is currently £8.30 per hour. Although a benefits system that rewards work and an economic climate that enables people to be socially mobile, obtain skills and capabilities and move into new or better paid employment are all key to reducing child and overall poverty, local authorities now have a clear legal duty to set out strategies to reduce child poverty. There are many good examples of how local authorities are approaching this challenge but it is inevitable that in times of recession, reducing poverty is an uphill struggle.

Author: Ben Dixon, Principal Projects and Policy Officer (T: 020 7934 9894) Click here to send a comment or query to the author